New Identities

After baby/babies many moms, especially stay-at-home-moms, experience an identity-crisis. The concept of sharing your body isn't totally new for many. As nausea, dizziness, discomfort, and finally huge bellies and all kinds of side-effects (sciatica, hemorrhoids, even pre-eclempsia & other complications) take over your body, you come to realize there IS, in fact, an alien inside.

When this alien emerges, there can be a great sigh of relief to have your body back. Yes, you can again jump for joy (literally) that you can now touch your toes and sleep comfortably on your stomach or back. But quickly, a different challenge emerges: the who-am-I question.

For those who have children while still young, say in their early 20's, the question of identity is not as pressing. You may have just graduated high school or college, and your adult persona may be easily transitioned to "mommy" and "wife" as replacement for someone's-daughter. But others of us who give up careers to stay at home with baby, ignoring our advanced degrees and otherwise well-defined professional and/or social identities can experience a crisis of sorts with regards to who we "really" are, as adults. Saying goodbye to our robust social lives and our coworkers or employees who respect and even admire us is incredibly challenging. And those of us who maintain our careers have the further constant tug-of-war between work-identity and needs versus home-identity and needs. Which comes first: the quarterly meeting with a major presentation and promotion potential or your daughter's first nursery-school graduation? How understanding will your boss be that your child was awake all night with an ear infection and you are too exhausted to stay at the office until 10pm the following day to finish the project? And how understanding will your CHILD be that you decide to stay at work that late?

These dilemmas fill our space and we spend a lot of time and energy struggling with our identities. Near as I can tell from more experienced moms, life gets easier when the kids are in school full-time, and you can "safely" carve out a chunk of your day to be your adult-self. But then, they say you miss the baby-stages and advise to "enjoy it while it lasts". Hmmm... more of a dilemma - now I feel GUILTY that I am waiting (im)patiently for my kids to grow up?! I guess a mommy just can't win this one. Good luck in the game, ladies!